This was how the conversation began that ended with me agreeing to takeover the monthly book club at one of the library branches. And while I feel I have a pretty good grip on my “discussion skills,” one major obstacle remains – I have never even been to a book club, let alone ran one. Quite frankly, it just never sounded like my cup of tea. And even more frankly, it still doesn’t. But alas, I need to expand my marketable librarian skills, and make more $. So here I am googling my life away, trying to figure out how to conduct one of these things. Thankfully I’m getting somewhat of a reprieve this first month, as I will get to watch my coworker (who is handing it over to me) run the show. And there is one awesome thing about it…if I survive, I get to choose the books for next year. I’ve already decided for sure that they’ll be reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the Time Traveler’s Wife.

Any readers (all two of you) been to or ran a book club before? Advice? That would be fantastic.

Here’s what’s happened since we left off:

1. Our cat was toilet trained.  Took about two months, but it’s done, and he just hops right up there and does his business.  It’s AMAZING not stepping on litter in bare feet, or the smell of a litter box, or having to clean the litter box.  All I have to do is flush the toilet when we see he has gone and clean the toilet, which I obv do anyway.

Cat uses the toilet, taken with Doug's iPhone

2. I quit the job I hated.  Now I have only one job, which is pretty fantastic though it’s still only part-time.  They gave me four more hours at the good job, but it’s not enough to make up for the job I quit, so I may have to get another job until they give me 8 more.  But I have more time to do various things now, so that’s nice.

3.  We got a dog! Her name is Dottie.  She’s a terrier mix, about 8 months old; we adopted her last Sunday from Mercy Rescue and Adoption in North Vernon, Indiana.

Our Dottie

She’s really calm most of the time, loves to take naps, and rarely barks.  She is pretty much the perfect dog, and everyone that meets her wants to take her home.  The cat was not pleased, but he’s getting used to her and never hisses at her now.  An equilibrium has been achieved.

More shameless photos of my lovely doggie:

Dottie

Her tail is normally flipped up over her back when she's happy and relaxed. When she's focusing intently on something (like a bird, or photographer), it hangs down.

Those are the bullet points as far as what’s been going on.  I’m hoping to post more often now that I’m a lady of leisure I only have one job.

So I suggested to my girlfriend that we train him to use the toilet.  As a librarian and a previous cat owner, I figured she already knew of such a cat dropping receptacle.  She did not however and was quickly schooled in human/cat toilet training via youtube

Anyway, our first step to this was to order such a cat training device: www.citikitty.com.  This is basically a thing you put in your toilet to simulate a littler box that slowly shrinks and gets your cat used to going on the toilet.

So once we got the thing, we switched his litter to flushable litter and mixed it with his normal litter.

Next we moved his litter box to the bathroom without the lid and put it next to the toilet.

Cat status: Confused, jittery, unsure and uneasy.
Prediction for tomorrow:  Litter everywhere , or cat going shit in the trash can where we put his old litter.`

More posts to come.  Just thought I’d get on here and prepare to post post post.

So let me start you off with the introduction, word for word.

“So the story starts, about a boy from Arima Village who was skilled with the sword.  His name was Musashi.  Son of the legendary swordsman Miyamota Musashi.  His dream is to be a great swordsman like his father.  One day he hears an ominous rumor.  The ghost of Kojiro, nemesis to his father has risen,calling monsters from Hell to terrorize the people.  So Musashi sets out with dreams…

I will defeat Kojira and maybe even get laid (yes that is in there)”

So if this is any indication of things to come.  I am in this to the very end.  Starting out I am in the village and playing as Musashi.  The first person I talk to says ” I’ll be lonely without you”.  Who this is and why I care, I do not know.  The second person I talk to says “be careful” and “KISS”.  So right away, this Musashi character is a pimp.  Wonder what else people have to say…

“Train hard to defeat the ghost of Kojiro, when you return you can marry Otsu like you promised”

“Don’t forget to equip your weapons”

“It is said Torii Shinto Gates have a magical secret.  Is it true?”

“Be careful in the poison Swamp”

That’s just a handful of conversations I had with the random villagers in Arima village.  All in all, I’m fairly confused and already promising to marry random Arima skanks.

My first impression of this game is that it’s an average rpg with heavy Japanese influence.  Whether this was actually released on NES here or Japan is unknown to me atleast.  The graphics seem decent, the sound is tolerable.  The only complaint I have so far is that the building’s signs are in Japanese.  So I have no clue what building is what.

Anyway, my quest will continue.  I will defeat the ghost of Kojiro and avenge my father (and maybe even get laid).  In my next post, we’ll take a closer look at the “creatures of Hell”, which so far consists of Cones.  Yes Cones.

]]> http://waydownyonder.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/adventures-of-musashi-my-great-nes-adventure/feed/ 1 dashphoenix AdventuresMusashi_001 AdventuresMusashi_002 http://waydownyonder.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/things-that-i-need-to-do-in-no-particular-order/ http://waydownyonder.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/things-that-i-need-to-do-in-no-particular-order/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:49:41 +0000 dashphoenix http://waydownyonder.wordpress.com/?p=181 ]]>

That is all.  For now.

Ok, Bob Dylan (probably) never said that.  He might have loved egg yolk or at least tolerated it.  This is up for debate.  But he also said, “times, they are a changin’”.  This might have been a song as well.  It’s hard to know for sure.

While I’m just a person and not an era, this perhaps isn’t the best example.  But oh well.

Over the past half year my life has been in what I’d liken to an “upheaval”  which is defined as…

anything characterized by abrupt and extreme changes (especially up and down)

In this time of upheaval, many things have changed.  I have won/lost large sums of money, stole, cheated, lied, schemed, plotted, quit jobs, closed bank accounts, maxed out credit cards, went on amphetamine driven tirades which resulted in me passing chemistry over the summer and met the love of my life.  The list goes on and on.

During this time I became someone else, someone I didn’t like.  I can safely say that this was probably the worst summer of my life.  I am still dealing with the aftermath of it and will be for awhile.  I was driven to the brink of insanity and only brought back to reality by desperation, hope and the love of someone who saw something more in me.  In the span of 8 months, I have destroyed many things that I once thought defined me and created many more that will define me.

Saying that I learned a lesson from all this would be an understatement.  Having 50+ creditors call your phone in one day is a bit of a wake up call.  Having no money for over half a year is very humbling.  Never have I learned as much as the past few months.

There are many changes coming.  And for once, I’m ready.

I’ve also decided to switch from Typepad to WordPress.  I have a lot of friends on WordPress, and they like it a lot.  From what I’ve seen so far, it seems far more customizable than Typepad (without me having to know a lot of code); in addition, I get everything I paid for at Typepad for free at WordPress, so yay.  I own my domain name at blankjane.com for at least another year, so I’m going to work on getting that forwarded to my WordPress blog.  I’ve already imported all of the blog posts/comments.

I’ve also changed the name of the blog to Way Down Yonder, since Blank Jane was really a single venture.  I was brainstorming titles like Wild Blue Yonder.  I really like that combination of words (though I have nothing to do with the Air Force), but it was taken.  Various other incarnations of that phrase were also taken, and Doug made me realize that I just really like the word “yonder.” It evokes a folksy feeling, reminding me of my Tennessee (from my father) and West Virginia (from my mother) roots, and traditional songs from my childhood.  But more than that, “yonder” is, colloquially,  some undefined (but almost always good) place.  That’s the feeling I’m looking to capture, and the place I’m trying to reach – somewhere mysterious, but vaguely pleasing.
The changes should all be complete within the next couple of weeks, and I hope to see you lurking around soon!